Tilbury Wharf. "And at this wharf of Tilbury" why not more porters? Why not a covering to the landing-stage, where at present, the traveller, like the sky parlour in ancient song, "exposed to the wind and the rain," will be thoroughly drenched while awaiting the advent of the tender. _Happy Thought._--To-day, fortunately, fine. These queries occur to me as I stand on this floating quay, and witness in the distance the "tender parting." There will be many "a tender parting" beside this one to be seen when the _Orotava_ gets her steam up, and quits Tilbury for Melbourne. We board the _Orotava_, which is to board and lodge so many of them (with another contingent going overland, and joining the ship later on) for the next month or so. I am personally introduced to the captain by some kindly friends who come to see me off, and whom, as I lose sight of them in the crowd, it is soon my turn to "see off"; as subsequently I can only catch a glimpse of them in the crowd, on the tender, as they depart for shore, when we wave hands to one another implying thereby all sorts of good wishes. After making the captain's acquaintance, I am introduced by some light-hearted companion--everyone on board is either boisterously gay or in the deepest grief--to a good-humoured-looking portly gentleman, whom, there being nothing whatever nautical in his appearance, I should have taken for a landed proprietor, "one of the olden time," had I not very soon discovered him to be something uncommonly superior in the Nautical Pacific Service, and _the_ friend in need, without whom no passenger's happiness is complete, that is, speaking from practical experience, if the destination of that passenger is only Plymouth, as was mine.